


Take Your Time

by junebugrebellion



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Avengers: Endgame, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Oneshot, Peggy centric, YOU KNOW WHAT THIS IS, endgame spoilers, i guess?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-23 18:26:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18707515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junebugrebellion/pseuds/junebugrebellion
Summary: In which Peggy Carter is sent a drink at a bar.✔️ Likes Marvel✔️ Ships Steggy✔️ Saw Endgame——————————Mandatory Stork Club fanfic





	Take Your Time

The club was lively, for what it was worth. People danced. Couples danced. The band was playing something brassy and fast-paced, so the room was filled with lifts and dips and twirls. The girls’ dresses bloomed with every spin, turning the dancefloor into an ever-changing garden of fabric flowers. And in this bloom, the men laughed. They laughed joyously at their dates, then with their dates, then at the splendor of it all. There was so much lovely, joyous laughter.

Peggy Carter, at the bar, wondered why she’d come at all.

“Excuse me,” she said, catching the bartender’s attention. “Do you have the time?”

While wiping a glass with a towel, he glanced to his wrist watch. “It’s a quarter past eight, Miss.”

She sighed. “Thank you.”

He looked up from his work to soften his eyes. Pity. At best, he thought her date was late. At worst, he thought she was being stood up. How would she tell him that neither and both were true? “A refill?” he asked, looking to her few fingers of scotch.

She’d taken three sips, at the most. “Sure,” she said, simply to be polite. He took, added a splash to, and returned her glass with a sympathetic nod. She swirled her glass lightly, watching amber so she wouldn’t watch the door.

Why had she come? It certainly wasn’t to get drunk: you didn’t drink scotch for drunk, no matter how hard she tried. So why else? Why here, why tonight, why now?

_Don’t you dare be late._

She wasn’t that sentimental, she told herself. This wasn’t some vow she’d made, some promise she’d hold in a locket with his picture. Not her. Not Peggy Carter. Not with a war to still win.

_Liar._

And even if there was a part of her that hoped he’d walk through that door, that the past week and a half had been a nightmare - which there _wasn’t_ \- it was squashed. She and Howard had teased at the idea, but he was sure of it. That plane into that water at that speed - there was no way to survive it. Even with the serum. He’d be frozen solid. And that was hoping there hadn’t been an explosion.

So he wasn’t coming. _He really is standing me up,_ she thought, first with a laugh, then with bitter sorrow. She took a sip of the whiskey to wash away the taste.

So why had _she_ come, sober and alone, to a club with people dancing and laughing and making a mockery of it all right in front of her face?

Because there wasn’t a body, perhaps. There was no body and no time. She’d been given leave, mercifully and back-handedly, but there was no funeral. The Allies were mourning, sure, but mourning Captain America. To think that he’d go down like this, a weapon in a war- To think that he would be a scientific marvel in history books-

It was for Steve. A funeral for Steven Grant Rogers. She was pallbearer to his memory, to his name, and there was nothing to bury.

So she watched people dance. She listened to them laugh. She watched them exchange smiles and kisses and whispered words. She took herself out, goddamnit, because there wasn’t any use in locking herself away and wallowing.

Steve wouldn’t have wanted that.

She’d cry later, she was sure. She would sob as if the world was ending, a hand over her mouth to keep from arousing too much suspicion at the hotel. She would ache, sometimes to the point of crippling her, for a long time. She was sure of that.

But she wouldn’t cry here. Not in public. Heavens, no.

“Miss?” said the bartender, coming to her again. If he was going to look at her again with those sad eyes, she would- “Someone’s sent you a drink.”

She considered refusing it. She was by no means in the mood for flirtation, for smiling politely at whatever man had thought she was alone so she must be available. But she was curious. “What is it?”

“Top shelf,” he said, setting down the glass. “Scotch from Speyside.”

Her favorite. A lucky guess, perhaps, as anyone who knew scotch knew Speyside, and it would’ve been easy to ask the bartender what she was drinking. She looked at the glass. “I suppose you can’t un-pour it.” And it likely was terribly expensive. She took the drink. “Who sent it?”

He leaned a bit forward and gestured to her right. “That gentleman down there,” he said, “in the red.”

Peggy leaned back on her stool and nearly fell off of it. There, sitting five seats away, in a burgundy shirt, was Steven Grant Rogers.

She pulled herself back up, eyes distant. The bartender, apparently deciding that this wasn’t his problem - or assuming that her vacant look came from something else - left to attend another patron.

She was dreaming. She must’ve been dreaming. But, if she’d been dreaming, she probably wouldn’t have paid so much for her drink. Why was everything so damn expensive in New York?

So it wasn’t a dream. That left three options. The first was that she’d simply _wanted_ to see him, and it wasn’t really him at the end of the bar, just some blond bloke who had been angled in the right way. So she glanced again, careful not to catch his eye. And it was him. It was still him.

Two options left, then. She looked at her glass of expensive whiskey and breathed. The second option was that this was some kind of trick. Mind control or a very good disguise or maybe some kind of science they hadn’t discovered yet.

That twisted in her stomach. What kind of monster would use Steve against her, especially this soon? Hydra would. Hydra still lived, she was sure. _Cut off one head._ And this was right up their damn alley, wasn’t it? The betrayal and the hurt and the absolute pain that would come with the sight of him, even the glint of his eyes or the line of his shoulder. His name. His _name._

But why would they be here? No one knew about the Stork club. No one knew about her promise. And no one knew, outside the Commandos, that she drank scotch over a cocktail. Again, they could’ve asked, but those misogynists never would’ve thought of a woman drinking whiskey, much less of a woman being a threat.

That left one option.

Steve - _her_ Steve - was here. Flesh and blood. Genuine. Heart still beating in his chest. It didn’t matter how. It didn’t matter the odds. It didn’t make an ounce of sense, but. _But._

While she considered and fought with herself over details and logistics, the woman sitting to her right rose and left. Peggy kept her head down to avoid arousing suspicion, to keep her wits about her, to keep from showing how afraid she was.

Someone took the seat. “The drink was a bad idea, wasn’t it?”

She knew that voice. It was all she’d heard for days. She looked over, and there he was. Steve smiled nervously, sweetly. There was a slight tremble in his fingertips, tension in his leg from its ignored need to bounce. Her Steve, her anxious Steve, who walked into enemy lines but agonized over small talk. She watched him, eyes wide, lips parted. She couldn’t find the words buried in her chest.

“I know it’s not possible,” he said, sighing. He reached up to rub at the back of his neck, fingers working at tension. “Or that it _shouldn’t_ be possible.”

He’d rehearsed this, hadn’t he? He wasn’t looking at her, was looking anywhere but at her. And he was scared; he wore it on his face. He’d always work everything on his face. He was never able to lie to her. He was older, just slightly, but enough that she could see. What could that have meant? It hadn’t even been a fortnight.

Almost sensing her question, he said, “It’s a long story. It’s a _really_ long story. I’ll tell you, if you’ll listen, but I don’t think here is the right place for it.” He sighed, almost laughed. “I’ll cry, probably, telling it.”

There was no way this was Hydra. They never would’ve captured him so well, so soft, so gentle. So it could’ve been a dream, she guessed, or a hallucination. It was possible that she had imagined him here, apologizing, explaining, fretting.

“But you don’t have to listen,” he said. He was more scared now, coming to the conclusion of the lines he’d written. “I understand if this is too much.”

If she touched him, he was real. That would make sense, wouldn’t it? She had to touch him, needed to touch him, to know and for the sake of it.

“I get it if you want me to go away.” He looked carefully down to his knees. “And I will, if you tell-“

Her hand brushed against his forearm. Solid. Warm. Real _._ He stopped, completely still, and finally looked at her face. Her fingertips traced down his skin to find his wrist. There, fluttering like a hummingbird, was a pulse.

Flesh. Blood. Here. _Real._

She looked from his skin to his eyes as her own began to dampen with tears. Finally, finally, she was able to speak. “You’re late.”

Steve’s face crumpled, all rehearsal falling away. He opened his mouth and closed it, reaching for words as he began to cry. “I’m sorry,” he said, smiling at her as tears slipped down his cheeks.

Peggy laughed softly, reaching to touch his face, to let her hand settle there for a moment, for the night, for the rest of their lives. They would have so much time. “It’s okay,” she assured, nodding a little. She stood and took the half-step required to embrace him. He, as always, met her halfway. “It’s okay,” she repeated, squeezing, holding. She would leave tears on his shirt, but by God, that didn’t matter at all.

When they pulled away, he couldn’t take his eyes from her. Carefully, he tucked her hair behind her ear, movements deliberate to remember every detail about this moment. “Peggy,” he said, voice soft, “you think we could have that dance?”

She nodded, then glanced to the bar and chuckled. “Let me finish my drink,” she said. She took her seat, now spun to face him. “Someone paid a lot for it.”

Together, they smiled. Together, they reached out and joined hands, then rested them on the bar. She squeezed.

He considered her in the dim yellow light, the band playing music that sounded like home. She was beautiful. They were together. She was Peggy, his Peggy, smart and funny and stubborn and loyal. This was a view he could get used to. Looking at her, he ran his thumb over her knuckles and breathed. “Take your time.”


End file.
